Worth of Souls

January 19, 2015

Okay so this week was just fine and dandy. Maybe even a little hunky dory.

It's the last week of the transfer! No one knows anything yet but I'm
guessing next week will be crazy, so if you don't get an email until
later and it's super short and whimpy, I'm sorry. Such is life on the
day of transfers.

We are guessing there will be a lot of changes this next week. Our
district leader has been here for a year, another elder for seven
months, Sister Johnson and I have been kickin it for three transfers.
So we just don't know. However, I am going to miss my district lots.
They make me laugh. I decided to write down a few things that were
said during our district meeting. Keep in mind this is very normal
kind of conversation for us.

*elder Colbert starts whistling*
Elder Dehlin- hey that's the Jurassic park theme song!
Elder Colbert- ...I was trying to whistle 'I belong to the church of
Jesus Christ' ...

Elder Dehlin- So what do you think that quote means?
Elder Montgomery- I just figured out what the first communion is!

Elder Watson- being a missionary isn't always killing orks, sometimes
you just have to ride through Rohan for a while.

Elder Dehlin- so what are some goals we can set as a district for the
last 11 days of the transfer?
Sister Johnson- hiking Angels landing in Zion
Me- yeah! All we'd need to do is take the money out of our mission
cards and take a car. We'll be back before the transfer and no one
will ever know!
Elder Watson- not a bad idea
Elder Dehlin- okay . . . Any goals for missionary work for the next 11
days together?

Ima miss us.

Here's a cool story! So one day this week two of the elders were
telling us his story where they called and confirmed dinner the night
before with the familia T. So the next day they went over to the familia
T's house and they welcomed them in, asked if they wanted banana bread
and then asked what brought them over to their neck of the woods. So
the elders were like "uhh...dinner?" Turns out there are TWO familia
T's in our ward, but one is less active so none of us are familiar
with her. So Sister Johnson and I laughed, how silly, right? So that
morning while we were looking for a member to come out with us to an
appointment we thought of hermana T! We didn't think she would say
yes, due to the fact that she has little children but to our surprise
she said yes! So then that night, after the story, we were waiting for
Hna T to come and we got a call from her, asking for directions. So
after we hung up, sister Johnson goes, "that didn't sound like hermana T"
... We accidentally called the other less active hermana T to come out
with us. We rolled with it and had a member present and then at the
end hermana T told us how grateful she was that we called her and she
felt like it was what she needed and she is going to try to start
coming back to church and again how happy she was that we thought to
call her.
God works in mysterious ways. So we didn't know that she needed to
come out with us, we didn't even know who she was, but God did. I
think it just proves that God is mindful of each and everyone of his
children. He knows what we need and what we want and he wants us to be
happy, so he'll do what he can to get us there. The worth of souls is
great in the sight of God!

We had a temple tour this week! We were so excited when three of our
investigators said they would come! Only problem was they needed a
ride. And it was our ward camp out that day, so most of the ward was
gone. We prayed so hard and nothing. But like always, the miracle came
and we found someone to take them. It was awesome. They really enjoyed
getting to walk around the temple and learn more about it. And it was
a nice change of pace in the missionary life. Miracles happen. Now I
have that "Princess Diaries" song stuck in my head.

Anyways. I love you all. Thanks for the love and support and
everything. You guys are awesome ! Have a fantabulous week.
Love Hermana May

Birthday!

January 13, 2015

So this week was perdy dern uneventful. Except for today! Because...
It's my birthday! Woot woot. Teenage days behind. Ima need a cane and
some hair dye to dye my grays in my next package.

And we went to the temple. It was wonderful! I love the temple. Go to
the temple. It's nice. It feels nice.  So go. All the people at the
temple are nice too. More reason to go. Any who that is what we did
this morning.

My zone leaders gave me an Oreo with a candle in the cream. They lit
it and sang to me but then my district leader blew out my candle
before I could. How rude.

And after the temple we went to Olive Garden! I'm still sooo full. I'm
not eating again until I turn 21. So yeah. It was good though. The
people at Olive Garden gave me a delicious free piece of cheesecake
and sang to me. And I got to blow out my own candle this time. It was
nice.

Yep so that's my birthday. I expect that tonight we will just teach
people....since that's what we planned and all.

Okay so something cool is this one inactive finally decided to go to
church and after he did he got a job! Go to church it gets ya
miracles. Good stuff. We also had a good lesson with some of our
investigators. They still didn't accept a baptismal date though.
Sheesh. I dunno what it's going to take for these guys.

Anyways I can't really remember what else has happened this week...
Maybe next week I'll bring my journal so I can remember what the heck
went on. We will see. Maybe not. That's a Lot of work to remember all
that, and on pdays before six, I kinda lose all inhibition. So don't
get you're hopes up.

But thanks again for all the birthday wishes! I love you Guys. You da
bomb digady. Have a wonderful week!

Love Hermana May

Happy Birthday Hermana May!!!

Happy New Year!

January 5, 2015

This week was good though. Pretty sure nothing spectacular happened, just life like normal. 

It was New Years...so that was fun. I mean we went to bed at 10:30 like good missionaries but we woke up again at midnight to drink some sparkling cider and wish each other a happy New Years before going to bed. 

I really like New Years Eve. One is reason is because I can say "______ until next year"

For example: I won't see you until next year!

Or, I won't wake up again until next year. 

I'm not talking to you until next year. 

I refuse to nightly plan until next year. 

It's a grand old time. Not sure why it's still so much fun even after all of these years, but it is. 

We are semi teaching this lady who is absolutely golden. Only semi teaching because she is moving back to Mexico in two weeks. But she gave us her address so the Mormons could come find her. And she'll be on the look out for them. She told us this week that the bible said we should read the Book of Mormon.  Show me that scripture please. We figured out a minute later she meant the references at the bottom of the page (we had given her a large bible so she could see the words) we hadn't really even talked hardly about the Book of Mormon, so we decided to talk about it more and gave her one and she just loves it. And she loves us so much haha. Why can't everyone be like that? And why is she moving back to Mexico? 

Fingers crossed that one day we will get to teach someone like her. 

So one thing I've noticed about our ward is that No ONE fasts. Not a one. Sister Johnson and I sat in relief society yesterday and watched everyone eating something, not to mention all of the candy they had sitting on the table for people to come grab when they wanted during the lesson and the bag of oranges one hermana brought to share. Then after the lesson our relief society president goes "hermanas, hay pastel en la cocina!" (Sisters, there's cake in the kitchen!) I feel like sometimes they eat more on fast Sunday's than on any other Sunday . . . Or maybe it's just because I'm hungry. 

We had 11 Less active/recent convert lessons this week. I don't know if that's a good number for most missions buts it's awesome for our mission! Our other lessons and member present lessons were a little lacking, but it wasn't for lack of trying. 

Any who. Nothing much else happened. Hopefully this week is awesome! Hope it is for you too! Love ya'll and miss you too! Have a great week!

Love hermana May

Happy New Year Cider

Some of the cutest girls in Garden Grove!

Personal Mormons

December 29, 2014

So this week was perdy good.
We went on exchanges this week. I went up to the singles ward with
Sister Bingham. She is a good sister training leader, I like her.
Anyways so we had this one lesson with this guy...and you know the
lesson is going to be super awkward when he first walks out in a
towel. Don't worry, he changed. Then he comes and we start teaching
about prayer and he gets sooo distracted every few seconds and in mid
sentence just decides to tell us how beautiful we are. Then he asks us
what is the difference between us and Mormons. So we tell him that we
are Mormons and he goes "man, I hate those guys! They tried to
brainwash me." Guess he had a bad experience before with Elders and
now seems to think that's what missionaries do - brainwash people. I
must have fallen asleep during that portion in the MTC. Anywhoo, he
doesn't seem to mind again after a minute and after almost forty
minutes we finish teaching him how to pray. So we get him to pray and,
I'll tell ya family, I have never had anyone be so grateful to God for
my beauty. "Thank you For these beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
beautiful, beautiful ladies..."
So after we established a little bit about our rules and how we can't
go off and just do what we please he asked us when we were going to
come back after our missions were over. Then when we would come back
to teach us again. Not especially eager to set a return appointment,
we told him that we could whenever he had time, just to text us and
let us know. Then he goes "so you're my own personal Mormons?"
... "No, we teach a lot of people."
"Oh,"
Awkward.

Good exchange though haha

On Christmas Eve we had district meeting. Afterwards we had a potluck
and a white elephant exchange. Elders don't understand potluck I
think. Sister Johnson made home made noodles for us to bring, and some
of the elders brought left over Mac and cheese... All was well though.
Since most Hispanics don't really celebrate Christmas on Christmas
Day, but on Christmas Eve we were super happy that Cecilia, our recent
convert invited us all over again to eat at her house. She fed us
American food plus tamales so it was a good night. Afterwards we went
caroling! It was a lot of fun.

On Christmas Day after I talked to all ya'll, we did some Facebook
like good missionaries and then drove to Buena Park to eat with the
other elders in their district. It was good. We ate outside and that
was a little cold, but the food was pretty good. The lady that fed us
was 65 years old and had a 37 year old boyfriend.  Haha sooo funny.
She kept calling him "mi precioso." Don't even know the guy's name.
They were very nice though.

Later that night, we went caroling again with two of the elders in our
district and with a member. It was way fun.  Definitely one of my
favorite parts of the day. Everyone was happy to see and it was cool to
just look around and see that all of these people (minus the member)
were sacrificing spending Christmas with their family to do what I was
doing, to share the gospel. So while Christmas on a mission wasn't the
funnest I've ever done, I'm glad I got to experience it and I don't
think I would trade it for any a different Christmas.

Other That our week wasn't super eventful. We ate at Denny's one
night. Unlimited hot chocolate. We taught a ton of lessons and
hopefully found some good people to teach. I will let you know how
that plays out. Oh and I bought a new purse and made a new year
resolution to keep it looking nice the entire year.

Okay well I hope you all have a wonderful new year! Goodbye 2014!
That's crazy huh?
Love Hermana May

Caroling

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve Selfie

It's Almost Christmas!

December 22, 2014

This week was good!

It's almost Christmas!!!!

We got to hang out with sister Galicia in Monday and Tuesday. She is a
lot of fun. I miss seeing her all the time. But her new companion
seems cool.

Yesterday at church there was this white guy (an English ward also
meets in our building) and he usually tries to talk to us for about a
half hour and he saw us and stopped us and looked at my feet and was
like "you need new shoes!" Then he pulls out a card from his pocket
and tells me all about this guy who sells $100 leather shoes in
Huntington Beach.  I'm sure they're nice shoes, but man they're ugly.
Not to mention way outside of my mission. If he only knew how many
shoes I have currently in my closet.

Sometime last month we stopped by a lady who has been less active for
several years and now she is coming to church again every week! We
stopped by yesterday to share a Christmas message and the spirit was
so strong and she bore such a powerful testimony and then thanked us
for bringing her back. It was really cool. We all felt the spirit so
strong and I could feel how much love Heavenly Father has for her. I'm
so grateful the Lord uses us as instruments to find and re-find his
children.

We had our Christmas party on Friday for the ward. It was sick (in a
good way) people were decorating all day long. We had a Christmas tree
and a balloon arch, piñata, bounce house, crazy amounts of food, all
sorts of stuff. Ain't nobody throws a party like garden grove 10. Some
of our investigators came too! And random people we invited! It was
awesome! Kind of felt like a chicken with its head cut off running
around all night trying to make sure all was good with them...but it
was still fun.

We went over to another less actives house this week because they fed
us dinner and it was delicious. The little girls named it "lasagnaroni
pizza" it was sooo good. Afterwards we helped decorate their Christmas
tree and set up a train around it. It was a lot of fun. I love those
little girls they're adorable.

We are excited for Christmas here! We have plans to go caroling and
not too much else since most of our investigators "can't meet until
after New Years" sheesh. That's okay, I'm sure we will find something
to do, right? Fingers crossed.

Nothing else too exciting happened this week...but I'm super excited
to talk to you all on Christmas!! See you Thursday!
Love Hermana May

Hat she finger crocheted.

Ward Christmas Party

Ward Christmas Party Pinata

Santa Cake one of our recent converts made

found this while out tracting

Spanglish

December 15, 2014

Okay so this week was good.  It rained again so that was nifty.
Spanglish is alive and well in the Anaheim mission. We were at a
members house for dinner and her two year old was watching a cartoon
and a whale showed up and he goes "whaleo!" Haha so funny.

One cool thing that happened this week  was we went knocking and one lady
opened the door and knew exactly who we were. She is also a member who
goes to a different ward. She was like "my grandson here has a
question that I have a hard time answering." His question? What is the
purpose of life?
That usually doesn't happen, ya know?
Anywhoo it was a cool lesson. We read some good scriptures and he
liked them a ton and asked if he could take a picture of it and we
were like "take the book" he was a cool kid.
After the lesson the grandma said that earlier that morning she had
been praying that someone could come and answer her grandson's
question. It's so cool to see how much the lord loves people and
answers their prayers and it's also cool to be the one the Lord lets
answer other people's prayers.

So transfers went well. Sister Johnson and I are staying together in
the five for round three. We both are excited. We were hoping to be
together for Christmas. :) Most of our district is the same once again
except for one elder. It'll be fun. Probably the best transfer ever
because it's Christmas and my birthday all in one transfer. It will be
epic!

I got my hair cut this week. I like it because the lady got off all
the dead ends and nastiness and stuff but it's just kinda short now
and I have crazy layers. It's all good when it's straight but I kinda
hate it when it's curly... That's okay. It'll grow right?

I finished my hat! With my hands! It's cool. I'll send a picture. Okay
sorry I'm all sorts of frazzled and stuff so this is the end of my
email.

Have a great week! I love you!

Love Hermana May

No pictures this week.  Guess she was really busy! We felt lucky to get the e-mail since it didn't arrive til the evening! Would have liked to see her haircut and new hat!  Maybe next post! Glad things are going well though!! :)

Rainy Days

December 8, 2014

This week was cool. Literally. It rained this week for two straight days! It was wonderful and magical and everything in the world was right for a moment. It made me realize however that Southern California doesn't really know how to deal with any kind of weather aside from the sunshine. So it's probably good that it doesn't rain or do anything here much because I don't think the people or the roads could handle it. But it was great. I've missed the rain. 

One night Sister Johnson and I were singing the Christmas song in the dark, by the light of our mini Christmas tree, listening to the rain outside and I thought "this is as Christmasy as its going to get" it was a happy, jolly night. 

We went and saw Bodies last Monday! It was super fascinating. A little creepy thinking the bodies we were staring at used to be real people, but super duper interesting. I think the nervous system was the coolest. 

There are two families here in the ward who I'm pretty sure are in competition with each other to see who can make the sisters throw up on their table first. It's nice to know they love us, but really, I haven't been hungry since Thursday. 

I got a new I-pad this week! Woot woot. I named him Bart. So that's been exciting. 

Oh! And guess what? While we were in the office getting Bart the assistants were there, so I wondered over and said "so one of the days that we have temple trips is my birthday. So that would be pretty great if those were on the same day."  And then one of them turned around in his chair and was like "when's your birthday?" So I told him and then he put it into his computer then he asked what session I wanted. Wow! Best birthday present ever. I'm sooo excited!!! 

We have this new investigator that's the girlfriend of a less active member and she is awesome. She is straight forward and asks questions and answers questions and she really wants to know what our church is all about. Please pray that things will go well! 

We got to go to the Christmas devotional yesterday. It was great. I really liked it. Did you guys watch it? Also apparently next Sunday our stake is putting on a production of the testaments. That kinda sounds like the coolest thing ever. I'll let you know how it goes. 

This cute lady in our ward is teaching Sister Johnson and I to crochet...with only our fingers. It's pretty fun. And then she gave us two cute hats she crocheted. People are so nice here :) 

Anyways, I'm sure I'm forgetting to tell you guys about something. So sorry about that. Have a super duper Christmasy week. 

I love you!

Love Hermana May

Rainy Day

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Our cute crocheted hats!!

I think my district leader decided to put me in a diet...he served my
food for me and this is all I got. He broke my fork in half too so it
was the right size haha